I'd hate for this rather high-larious conversation to get lost. Aside from being hysterical funny, to me, anyway, it's also quite illustrative of how wingnuttery works these days.

Purposely disinformed boobs are given false information by Rightwing corporate charlatans to create an army of pawns and stooges all to ready to spread the disinformation. Those pawns and stooges occasionally show up in blog comments or at your Thanksgiving table, offer the misinformation they've been propagandized to believe, get called out on it with actual, independently verifiable facts, and, instead of responding with actual facts in kind, declare the entire thing "bullshit!" before running off with their disinformed tail between their heavily propagandized legs.

That was the precise model of my recent conversation with disinformed wingnut stooge "Greg" in BRAD BLOG comments last week, in response to a very short blog item which did little more than illustrate how Matt Drudge covers undocumented immigrants in the U.S. as if they were an invading Zombie Army coming to destroy America and Americans. (See the illustration I snipped from the Drudge Report last week above right.)

Here's how the embarrassing --- but, I fear, all too recognizable --- conversation went with "Greg". Pop up some popcorn, and enjoy. His final response, especially, makes it all worth while...

Uhhhhhh, we are not afraid of illegals, we are afraid of what they cost us. Migrant workers come and go on work visas, all good, system works.
Believe it or not, food stamps, welfare, Medicaid costs are making this country go broke, let's just push another 30 million on these programs... Brilliant!
The states burdened with this will tell you what this is costing them, we have laws, try being an illegal in Mexico rere...

Uhhhhhh, we are not afraid of illegals, we are afraid of what they cost us.

Uhhh...then I've got great news for ya! I'm afraid you don't know what you're talking about. Immigration reform, like immigrants, are good for the economy. Always have been. But, don't believe me. Believe the (so-called) "Bipartisan Policy Center" at the Rightwing U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which reports that immigration reform "would bolster the country's economic growth by 4.8 percent" and "reduce the country's deficits by $1.2 trillion".

If you didn't know that, friend, it's because you've been conned...by people who are either afraid of immigrants or hate them (the brownish ones, anyway...haven't noticed a big movement to build a wall across the Canadian border.)

Believe it or not, food stamps, welfare, Medicaid costs are making this country go broke, let's just push another 30 million on these programs... Brilliant!

Uhhh...those programs are not "making this country go broke" in any way, shape or form. The notion is absurd. Most of those programs help the economy (for example, every $1 in foodstamps generates $1.73 in the economy). Adding 30 million tax-paying citizens to this country, the vast majority of whom would pay far more in taxes than they take out, helps all of the programs you just mentioned.

You really need to get your "education" from somewhere other than Fox "News" or wingnut talk radio. But, you found us. So I hope that helps.

Sorry Brad, I'm not buying it... You are obviously a sheep being led to the pasture. What's next, debt is great for our country? 20-30 trillion will grow our economy? Oh that's right, unemployment grows the economy too, I think the famous economist pelosi once said that. If welfare programs are so great for the economy we should really see some great growth here any day!

No prob, cause I'm not selling it. I am, however, trying to help educate you about how you've either been terribly conned or are not terribly bright. You'll have to decide which is the case.

You are obviously a sheep being led to the pasture. What's next, debt is great for our country?

Actually, much like starting a business (when one borrows a lot of money to start it up), debt is, indeed, often a "great" for our country. It was the debt we were willing to take on under Presidents like Obama and George W. Bush that helped us recover from a recession (in Bush's case) and entirely staved off a great depression by reversing the global economy disaster left by Bush (in Obama's case). If you need help reading economic facts, data, charts and reports on that, let me know. But, yes, that's how you help put people back to work and recover your economic and revenue base.

Oh that's right, unemployment grows the economy too

If you mean payments under unemployment insurance, then, yes, that's right. But, again, you're obviously not educated in matters of the economy. If you can find an economist --- anywhere, of any party --- who says otherwise, please feel free to share it with me.

If welfare programs are so great for the economy we should really see some great growth here any day!

Right. And we have. You really need to find some legitimate news sources to follow, amigo.

FYI... The US Chamber of Commerce is not right winged rocket. Just this week an insider leaked unemployment numbers were "modified" prior to the election...

Oy. You really are conned or stupid, eh?

Some help for you: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is not a government agency. It is a private lobbying organization. The largest in the world. It is the top spender of campaign funding, 94% of which is spent on Republican candidates.

You are, apparently, confusing them with either the U.S. Census Bureau of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which were named in a hoax "scandal" this week by Rupert Murdoch's NYPost. If you've managed to read this far, I'll further help you out by letting you know that the U.S. Census employee who claimed he had faked some interviews (which, according to the NYPost's silly story, resulted in a jump in the BLS employment numbers just before the 2012 election) has already been revealed as bullshit. The most important part of the story that helps to debunk it: The employee of the the Census Bureau who says he faked interviews which helped turn around employment statistics in 2012 hadn't worked for the Census Bureau since 2010.

Ok, glad to know record spending, debt, food stamps, unemployment, disability, bankrupt Medicare, Medicaid, SSI are all great for the country. Thanks, I feel better...

Wow. You really enjoy being conned, don't you? I keep trying to help you, but apparently you don't want to be helped. You prefer playing the stooge. No, Medicare, Medicaid and SSI are not bankrupt by a long shot, even though the scoundrels you apparently listen to enjoy fooling you into believing that.

So, since apparently you don't have access to Google over there, here is my (hopefully) last attempt to help you. Colorful charts! And I've chosen ones that are easy enough for even someone like you to understand! Good luck! At least give them a look before you put your head back into the sand, your ass, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's whore house or the Fox "News" house of suckers. Where ever you prefer to stick it...

Hope you can make sense of those. Or, you can continue happily along in Pretend World! The corporatists playing you for a sucker (and laughing at you) would much appreciate it, if so!

Given his last line there, one might conclude this dude was a performance artist all along. But I really don't think so. I think he's just one of the sad clowns that the modern day GOP has dis-educated into becoming the very "zombie army", they have been conned into thinking they are staving off in their "patriotic" battle against immigration --- and everything else that is actually good for them.

I agree Gene, too bad most Democratic party voters elect right wing candidates too. Both Parties are controlled from the oligarchs above. There are few true lefties in office. And if you don't play the game you don't stay for long.

Personally, I have yet to see Brad's bad side. I think Larry's referring to Brad's okay-let's-cut-the-crap-and-get-real side where he artfully and thoroughly deconstructs the latest nonsense offered in the comments. To my way of thinking and sensibilities Brad doesn't come off as mean-spirited or gratuitously unkind in these efforts. He's just providing strong, clear rejoinders with the occasionally giving-the-person-a-little-friendly-and-more-than-deserved shit thrown in. Not traditionally thought of as "bad-sided", in my opinion.

The bad part of the equation, for my money, comes with the attitudinal comments of those who are not really open to persuasion or argument or facts. Lot of that going around.

Chris Hayes had an interesting pre-Thanksgiving show with friends around his desk/table discussing various aspects of how to talk/not talk politics with friends and family around the table during the holiday season.

I thought he nailed it when he said there are certain people who are just not open to persuasion, who really just can't acknowledge or consider another point of view, that don't come for that, and how little point there is talking with them cuz they are really not interested in anything resembling a normal give and take of ideas.

I certainly have noticed the difficulty in attempting communication with those kinds of people both with my family and here in our comment section.

But I must throw in that bubbleheaded, untouchable, magic thinking is not the sole province of the rightwing nut squad. Chris Hayes himself did not seem in the slightest bit open to discussing with me the subject of the major problem with our voting machines at the Q&A where I brought it up.

The topic of voting machines being rigged is about as appetizing to the person on the street as a slaughter of the innocents these days.

You'd think that, at least, the libertarians, independents, and - certainly - the democrats would be concerned.

Before John Kerry threw the election he was intrusted with to win against "The War President", things were different, but we just didn't get enough traction against whatever distraction was happening in the media at the time and I felt the nations heart sink on that day. Did you?

We managed to get Obama elected, even in the heart of Utah, (Salt Lake County), in 2008 because we have an honest election official here and were, mostly, let down again.